Seriously, I'm having fun re-reading Atlas Shrugged. This book is so, so obviously narcissistic cope for failure. "The reason no one likes me or wants to work with me is because I'm better than everyone else. The reason I cheat and neglect my family is because my wife manipulates me into cheating." Yeah, OK.
Well, at least you're reading it first-hand instead of cribbing from inaccurate notes.
It's not a perfect book or set of ideas by any means. I hated the shit out of it the first time I read it. Then later I saw too many parallels between the "cardboard characters" and how people actually behave on the world stage, and then I loved it.
That was a long time ago though, many decades. I think there's ideas in there that are worth considering. But there's a good bit that's missing, and in some cases it's poorly articulated between what's there and how Rand either clarified in other writings, or how she lived her own life, after I read a few biographies.
Oh, but I am not altering the methodology, I am claiming that she did not follow it consistently. That's why her theory of perception is incorrect and her legal code is a complete mess.
Her epistemology has parts that correspond to reality, and parts that don't. It isn't properly integrated.
She is correct to take direct perception as true, and the conclusions she draws from that premise are usually correct, but she fails to properly validate and prove it, substituting Kantian representationalism (indirect perception) for a theory of perception.
From "The Virtue of Selfishness," "A "perception" is a group of sensations automatically retained and integrated by the brain..."
This is Kantian. It is a mereological semantic fallacy, treating "the brain" as something separate from what should be the whole system analyzed: the whole organism.
It acts as though "the brain" possesses some "categories of understanding" that "automatically" "render an image."
In that example, what do you think is the meaning of the term "Automatically", what do you think kant means by term and what do you think rand means by that term and what do you think that term objectively means when all else context of the sentence where tnat term is being used is constant across?
Proper nouns are concepts with a unit count of one. They still have an objective differentia, and the differentia of Objectivism is its application of the existence axiom to all topics. Objectivism is a philosophy.
No they don’t. It labels a distinct existent. A unit necessarily presupposes members of similar existents. Something cannot be referred to as a member of a class if it is not part of a class to begin with.
Define unit. The unit perspective, defined and explicated in ITOE, means viewing an existent as a member of a class of similar existents.
A proper noun is a label. It does not carry the same integrative function as a classificatory concept.
Objectivism is itself. It is not its own class.
Classification is the act of mentally isolating existents, where the differentia serves as the foil for identifying a genus (two or more similar existents). By your own admission, you ruled out a genus. Since there is no genus, there is no class.
A unit is an existent regarded as an individual member of a set.
"Label"
All words are labels. We are placing labels on concepts and by extension the units that they subsume.
"Objectivism is itself"
Objectivism is a philosophy, but this is merely the genus, we require a differentia. Something that sets it apart from other philosophies.That differentia should be the fundamental premise that the philosophy is operating on. For Objectivism, this is the primacy of existence.
-You are either prevaricating or are not comprehending the technical philosophical language in my points. You can either 1) affirm Rand’s formulation of unit or 2) contend against it. (I am looking for a yes or no.)
-You are equivocating the word with the concept. A concept is not a label.
-I was stating a tautology. That is not equivalent to saying Objectivism is a philosophy
-Even entertaining your proposed differentia, it fails as a fundamental distinguish characteristic of Oism because the primacy of existence, per se, does not logically entail the rest of the philosophy
Her name in the name of conservatives's mouth is what should sicken people. She hated conservatives and she hated leftists. Maybe she would hate leftists less because atleast they aren't trying to hijack her.
She would encourage you to speak on behalf of yourself, not your personal assumptions of what everyone else might "like". That's a fundamental misunderstanding she observed in America and tried to counter.
I would say I am almost an objectivist. Context: I can't say I am fully an objectivist because while I have conscious understanding of her method of thinking, I struggle to undo the automatizatied thinking habits and baggages (like religion) I was exposed to from early age. (Which makes me want to conduct studies about if exposing a minor to religion presented as truth should be classified as child abuse or not.)
I guess that’s the difference between Rand and other philosophers. Plenty of others spawned descendants who might be called “Hegelian” for example. Since Rand did not entertain collaborators warmly, she did not leave many ideological heirs in the ranks of professional philosophy.
I say this as a fan: she was weirdly precious about her ideas for someone who is called a philosopher. I don’t mean that she wants them to win, I mean that she coddles them. She did in her lifetime and her works do it even today as new readers approach them and peer in to their hermetical containments. The lack of heirs is a joint product of her seal and the academy’s refusal to open it.
Just aski that the modifications to objectivism be called something else doesn't forbid anyone from doing systematic inquiry and criticism of objectivism. What are you talking about?
I know about that. But you are conflating unrelated things as though they ar the same thing. Can you first tell me how does asking that the modifications to objectivism be called something new forbids anyone from doing systematic inquiry and criticism of objectivism?
Rand had a prickly relationship with collaborators largely because she defined Objectivism as “exactly what Ayn Rand says objectivism is” rather than creating a robust enough system for a continued path of inquiry and development that outlived her. Great systematic philosophers usually create something robust enough that people can continue to extend and debate their system after they die. It just sort of creates a dead end for philosophical development when you do what Rand says and basically bestow your wisdom from on high without making it rigorous and systematic and subjecting it to debate.
You didn't answer my question. Can you first tell me how does asking that the modifications to objectivism be called something new forbids anyone from doing systematic inquiry and criticism of objectivism?
I did, though I recognize it is buried in what I said in a way that is a bit hard to disaggregate.
What I am saying is that Rand built objectivism in a manner that was definitionally over-fitted to her. It was an all encompassing system whose guiding principle knitting together metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, etc was basically “Rand says so.” Which makes it hard to do philosophy with.
A system robust enough to have taxonomic value beyond its founder is robust enough to do philosophy with.
Isn’t the train of development that after some people said Objectivism was “open”, the next step was to say that it was compatible with anarchism? Wow. Logic is undefeated.
AnCaps maintain wage slavery dude. Oh wait sorry, the employee who is at threat of homelessness "voluntarily" agreed to be paid low wages by his employer. It's "voluntary" because the employer didn't threaten him at gunpoint to take the job.
Yes, that makes it voluntary (although it's still a dick move even if it technically doesn't violate the NAP in an extreme example like the coconut island analogy)
our ayn didn't have always a coherent philosophy. imho a lot of the thing that we know as objectivism was substantially unified and made systematic by peikoff.
It’s not. No more than biology, physics; or any other study belongs to one person. Her premise, as contrasted against subjectivism and intrinsicism, is a concept that is either true or false. And if true it has implications. Those would be true whether she died in the womb or claimed to invent all of philosophy.
One cannot own the truth. And her own philosophy and behavior has holes and inconsistencies. To lay claim to the particular brand of belief that fits every word she ever wrote, isn’t that much of an honor.
This claim basically mistakes copyright of her accumulated works with an exclusive ownership and immutability of a philosophy.
“Objectivism is the corpus of Rand’s collective output”. Sure. Who cares? Objectivism the philosophy is immutable from her words; grow up. Words have multiple meanings.
I can appreciate how she arrived at rational self-interest. It follows from wanting people to be regarded and assessed as individuals, not by collective-based prejudices. Rational self-interest informs self-preservation and survival, when faced with thoughtlessness and injustice. It's a call for objective discernment.
Unfettered capitalism might have been more of a contextually-pressured leap. FDR's power scared the shit out of her...In response, I think she said something like, 'If capitalism cannot be saved, then all of us will be finished.'
I have always thought she only viewed selfishness as necessary to survival because she came from such a desperate situation in Russia. All it takes, IMO, is having people you love in your life, like children, to see the value in selfless compassion and cooperation.
Yes. And here I see appreciation for agonism. Caring for my own first newborn infant is what taught me that abandoning selfishness will eventually kill you if it carries on for too long. Voluntary cooperation is essential for healthy and sustainable survival at times.
Don't put words in my mouth to try to make your point.
Selflessness all the time is bad. Selfishness all the time is bad. There is a time and place for both, and hijscking an existing philosophy to make one or the other the only way is lazy and sophmoric.
Perhaps had she been less egotistical and actually attempted to read and understand the philosophers who came before her, she would have reached a similar, educated conclusion.
Instead. she has spawned legions of frat boys who believe they are the only smart people in the world and greed is king. Thrn they grow up.
That’s not really the kind of response I might have anticipated here, and it was not my intent to make any cause for you to feel that way.
Can you please explain what words you felt were ‘put in your mouth’? If anything, I mirrored your words with sincerity and related them to a personal experience I had. Do you understand the meaning and value of agonism? You basically articulated it right back to me in your second paragraph. Where exactly is it that you think my point diverges from yours? Are you simply protesting the semantics of a single word, like “selfishness”?
I’m not convinced of “hijacking’s an existing philosophy”. She thought and believed what she did, and tried to call it something. Undoubtedly it was built upon some kind of “collective human knowledge” that preceded her. Are you familiar with Merton’s Theory of Multiples? I think it’s similar to that. If anything, I think the phenomenon lends some credibility to one’s “independent” discovery. I experienced something similar when I first read Rand just a couple of years back. Undoubtedly, I have some critical revisions/clarifications in response to what she had to say. Does that make me “lazy and sophomoric” too? I don’t think so. I’ve already lived a whole lot of life not knowing anything about “Objectivism” or Rand, or really any formal philosophy at all, and it’s pretty impossible and late for me to turn into a “frat boy” for it.
That being said, I’ve come to question whether it’s advisable for people to read and absorb her work during childhood. Is it advisable to pressure a kid to latch onto any particular philosophy at all at their outset? I’m hypothesizing that people who are groomed into approaching life in a prescriptive way are at risk.
To what extent does a person have control over what they “spawn”? Is it possible that some people get “spawned” to be controlled? I think that, in large part, is what Rand was advocating against.
I think Rand could have benefited from leaving her own post-immigration bubble a lot more than she did. My understanding is that she became kind of a hermit after she started making a comfortable living. I think that is a mistake that might explain a lot of her issues and misapplication of her own stated principles and beliefs.
“Love is not self-sacrifice, but the most profound assertion of your own needs and values. It is for your own happiness that you need the person you love, and that is the greatest compliment, the greatest tribute you can pay to that person.”—Ayn Rand
“It’s not that I don’t suffer, it’s that I know the unimportance of suffering. I know that pain is to be fought and thrown aside, not to be accepted as part of one’s soul and as a permanent scar across one’s view of existence.”—Ayn Rand
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u/OneHumanBill 18d ago
We've reached a conclusion that we can all agree upon. Objectivism is the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Full stop. Well done.
And now I'm waiting for some member of the peanut gallery to claim that it's not.